Breathe in Breathe out
by ladygalactictea
Summary: Recently coming out of a breakup, Delphine goes in a trip to Europe with her best friend in order to flee from her daily problems. What she doesn't know is that there is more to the DYAD conspiracy, and that her love life is about to get much more complicated. Rated M for things to come. (Shayphine, Cophine, other pairings)
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

It wasn't the best time. It was not even by far the best time for that. Delphine was so pissed at the whole fucking universe. It should only be a bloody conspiracy against her. It had no other explanation. Why did everything have to go wrong for her?

Sitting by her window pane she looked down to her beeping mobile phone. It was Cosima again, and what could she possibly want now? They were over, weren't they? Delphine took six months to heal her broken heart, and now it has been four days in a row that Cosima keeps calling her. It is too much bad luck for a single person.

It was clear for Delphine that she didn't feel anything for Cosima anymore, which was good, but still she didn't feel like picking up her mobile and taking that call. Whatever Cosima wanted, it could wait. Or she could get her help somewhere else from somebody else. Like, for instance, that professor Blackwood who totally wrecked their relationship.

Delphine breathed in, and breathed out calmly. Then she stood up and made her way to the bathtub. She turned on the hot water, and went on to take a bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass, and placed down next to the bathtub while she undressed and got in.

It was so relaxing to just spend time doing this kind of nothing. She closed her eyes, and imagined her house in Budapest, her amazing view from the top of the hills. The bridges, the Parliament building, the giant wheel… Everything was so far away, and maybe that was just what she needed, was it not?

Delphine then suddenly came up with this brilliant idea: she had to go there. She had to go to Europe. She needed a break, she needed holidays, and she needed to be as far as possible from all this Cosima and DYAD bullshit.

Of course she would have to make some calls, and leave someone in her position while she was away, but she did not really care. _What time is it, by the way?_ The pointers of her timepiece showed 10 p.m. _Whatever._

Delphine got out from the bathtub, put on a robe and walked into her bedroom to get ahold of her mobile. She was about to dial Rachel's number, but there was an incoming call. Cosima again. _Wait, what? It might actually be just what I need right now._

"Hello, Cosima," she answered the call.

"Delphine," Cosima's voice sounded like letters in _italic._

"What do you want? Why are you calling me?"

"Um…" Cosima paused. "I have been trying to reach you for days… There are some things I would like to say to you. About us. About everything that happened, maybe you would like to-"

"Cosima, don't," Delphine interrupted. "I don't want to hear anything from you. In fact, I am actually going to quit DYAD, and I think I can even use this call to tell you that if you want, maybe you can take my place, be in my position."

"You're quitting DYAD? Why is that?" Cosima sounded surprised enough.

"I have other priorities right now."

A one-minute awkward silence took over the call.

"Right," Cosima stated.

"So should I get the papers ready and pass them forward? Regarding your taking over?"

"Sure," Cosima said, automatically.

"Deal, then. I think I should go now."

"Of course," Cosima said, and hung up.

Delphine felt a huge relief taking over her body, then she threw her mobile over her bed, and came back to the bathtub. A smile started growing slowly on her face, and she could already feel free from all of her obligations.

. . .

"I still can't believe we're going!" said Louise while she stepped into Delphine's flat, carrying a big baby-pink travel bag.

Louise has known Delphine for ages. They met when Delphine first moved from Lyon to Paris, to study medicine, and they became friends really quick. Their friendship evolved into something more, and eventually their differences torn them apart, but friendship remained.

When Delphine moved to Canada to work for DYAD they were still together, though, and that is why Louise still lives in Canada now, since she came with Delphine. They got separate flats after they split, but Louise still spends 70% of her free time at Delphine's place.

"You already packed?!" Delphine shocked.

"OF COURSE!" Louise said, walking to the bedroom and leaving her travel bag there. "I got everything ready already, including cards and paper money."

"Girl, you're loving it," Delphine smiled.

"Absolutely!" Said Louise, poking Delphine's cheeks.

Delphine smiled, and pulled back, turning the sound system on via her mobile, and making her way to the counter to pour two glasses of wine.

"So… Did she stop calling you?" Louise asked out of the blue.

"After I told her I would put her in charge of DYAD because I was leaving? No."

"And is that good? Do you feel relieved?" Louise came near Delphine, taking her glass of wine and drinking a bit.

"A lot," Delphine started drinking her wine and walked to the couch and sit.

Louise observed Delphine from the counter. The way her hair fell down her shoulders, the way she bit her lips while thinking. It would be a great trip, and nice holidays. Life was sweet.

While she rested on her couch, she could barely listen to the song that was playing. She could only picture European beaches and downtown alleys. Maybe it was really a good idea after all.

. . .

The sun was shining, the water was blue, people were speaking in lots of different languages, and the menus were not only in Greek. That was perfection. Last time Delphine was in Greece she was 9. It was her parents' anniversary. So she didn't have many memories or whatever of Greece.

"Oh, gosh," started Louise. "I could live here. Mykonos is perfect. Why don't I live here? Why do Greeks ever leave Greece?"

Delphine didn't care to answer. She knew Louise was simply being rhetoric.

Louise was sunbathing fully naked, while Delphine was only topless, with sunhat and sunglasses, reading a book. The beach was really crowded, but they had managed to lay down somewhere a bit far from the madding crowd, next to the other naked people.

"Do you mind?" Someone asked, taking Delphine off of her book.

She turned right to see a wavy-haired blond girl completely naked willing to put her towel down next to them.

"Not at all," Delphine replied with a smile, and quickly coming back to her book. _What is this?!_ She looked left, but Louise seemed to have fallen asleep during sunbathing.

Delphine tried to concentrate in her reading, but every second she found herself bothered by the presence of this girl next to her. It was not because the girl was excessively hot, and her breasts looked perfect, and her eyes were as blue as the ocean nor anything. It was just that she lost her concentration.

"Um, excuse me," Delphine looked at her.

"Yes?" The girl raised her eyebrows.

"Do you mind looking out for my belongings while I go get something to drink?"

" _Not at all,_ " she replied with a smile.

"Thank you," Delphine said, standing up. _Wait, wait._ After a few steps, she turned back to look at the girl agin.

"Do you want me to bring something for you?"

"Oh, never mind!" She replied with a wink.

 _Okay, she is really sexy._

At the bar, Delphine asked for two piña coladas, and looked back, to check on Louise, but the moment she did that he heard someone talking to her.

"Wow, look what we have here," said a blond girl in green bikinis, and sunglasses. She put her bangs out of her face and smiled, taking her glasses off.

"Excuse me?" Delphine said, a bit pissed. She had never been hit like that by a younger woman on a Greek beach.

"You don't want people to say things, you should cover them," said the girl, winking and making a gesture, like grabbing her own breasts.

OMG! Delphine had totally forgotten she was topless.

"Two piña coladas!" Said the bartender.

"Thank you," said Delphine, getting ahold of the drinks and quickly walking away from that bar and that girl. OMG! She was so embarrassed.

She sit down, placed her drinks over her towel and thanked the gorgeous blondie for looking out for her belongings.

"Louise, wake up," Delphine said, touching Louise's arm. "Got us some alcohol, darling."

"OH GOSH I HEARD ALCOHOL?" She sit up, taking a big sip from one of the drinks. "Oh, so good!" She closed her eyes, and when she opened them up… She raised her eyebrows, making eye movements to the blonde girl next to Delphine.

"Who is she?" She spoke on mute, moving her lips and pointing.

"Just a girl," made Delphine with her mouth.

"She has perfect boobs and a gorgeous-"

"Shut up!" Delphine snapped.

Louise laughed out loud.

"Okay," She kept laughing.

Delphine looked to the girl and said, "I am sorry, my friend is really noisy."

"That's okay," the girl replied. "Mine is noisy, too."

"Yours?" Delphine was confused.

"Yup," answered the blonde girl from the bar, sitting down next to the girl Delphine was talking to.

 _Oh, my._

END OF CHAPTER ONE


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Delphine couldn't believe it. Of all the people who could have sat next to her, of course it had to be the one blondie that hit on her at the bar. _Awesome! Not to say merde, merde, merde! Okay, breathe. If I ignore them I can totally live by this morning._ She smiled at the girls after acquiring the knowledge that they were in fact staying there next to Delphine and Louise, and then she laid down again, turning to Louise with a please-tell-me-this-is-not-happening face.

"See you are making friends, Dee," Louise smirked. "What was _that_?"

"Nothing, Lou," Delphine rolled her eyes, imagining how much more could she stand of it.

"You seemed like you knew each other. You and the new girl."

 _Cof! Cof!_ The blondie from the bar interrupted the conversation.

"I met your friend at the bar," she made a gesture. "So yeah, we kinda knew each other."

"Oh, please," Delphine snapped, rolling her eyes, trying to ignore this whole conversation and concentrate on her drink instead of blondie #1 naked boobs or blondie #2 covered boobs. _What is this thing about boobs?_

The blondie from the bar simply laid down after Delphine's reaction and started chatting with her friend. Delphine felt a mix of disappointment (maybe deep down she expected the girl to insist a bit more in talking to her) and relief (maybe she was just too scared of human contact right now). Just as her heartbeats started slowing down, Louise took her off her thoughts.

"Maybe we should befriend them and go out to party?"

"Come on!" _Are you serious?! You don_ _'_ _t party with people that were naked when you first met them! Or do you?_ "They are speaking in Spanish, Lou! They don't want to befriend us."

"Excuse me?" Louise was feeling revolted! That was outrageous.

"When people speak in a different language from the one they were just speaking in next to people they were just talking to, it means they _don_ _'_ _t_ want those people to understand what they're saying," Delphine raised her voice. "What a _pity_ that we are _fluent_ in Spanish!"

 _Wait, what? Am I really being a complete attention-seeker?_

Both of the blondies stopped talking and looked at Delphine with a what-the-fuck-are-you-doing face. They were really impressed with this girl's sense of humour or whatever it was. It was weird, right?

Embarrassed by the silence that she had brought upon the group, Delphine took a deep breath and apologised. She was totally coming out oddly. Maybe she should let it go.

"The heat is making me stressed," she suddenly stated, with exasperated hand movements.

"I totally get it," said blondie #2. "You don't know how to make friends, because you never go to crowded places on holidays. Well, it's your lucky day. I am Shay," she smiled.

Delphine mentally repeated her name approximately eleven times and absolutely hypothesised seven different study fields she could probably be into, and then looked left at Louise. All of this is fractions of seconds, obviously. Delphine was a quick one.

"Oh, I am Louise," she stood up to take a place closer to the blondies. "And she is Delphine. She is French, that is why she is rude _sometimes._ "

"And I am Chloé," said blondie #1. "So you girls are French… We can work with that," she laughed.

From afar Delphine could see the boats heading right to the New Port hidden behind the hills. Paraga Beach was truly a great choice, except for the unsettling girls next to them.

She felt as if she didn't want to say nor hear anything. When was the last time she really interacted with people (other than Louise) in a social basis? Maybe she'd forgotten how to do that, or maybe she just didn't mind. What good are people anyways?

The more they went deep into the small talk, the more Delphine wanted to leave; but as she heard Louise's excited voice comment after comment, she made up her mind for bearing it a little bit longer.

As time passed and people started moving away, Delphine grew a bit more comfortable (the less people the better), but still felt no will to join their conversation about French universities and doughnuts.

But there was this specific line that took Delphine off her wanderings.

"Actually, we're not on holidays," said Shay. "We're in the field."

"Oh, I see…" Louise started with a smirk, her voice mysterious. "You're hunting."

Chloé's voice was soft, and serious this time, as if something was not matching on the conversation. Delphine had turned her face right to face her absolutely caught by her tone.

"No, dear, we're in the field meaning we came here because of work."

"We're investigating the causes of an unknown virus outbreak that happened a week ago," Shay started talking. "You don't have to feel alarmed. We have it under control. It is just that we presume it started on the hot springs next to the Oia volcano."

"An unknown virus outbreak?" Delphine asked.

"Yes," Shay replied.

"Is it airborne?"

"We are not sure yet," Chloé intervened. "But you don't have to worry. The virus is not lethal anyways."

Something was weird about that. They said people shouldn't be alarmed, but no one asked about safety, it felt to Delphine as if they were trying to keep it low, and people calm. And those are things we do when the situation is not entirely under control or when we do not really know what is happening.

The subject of the conversation was quickly changed as soon as Delphine stood up and walked away to the bar. What time was it? 5 p.m.? Okay, it was around noon back in Toronto.

 _Please, pick up._

"Now you come to me," was the first thing Cosima said on the phone.

"What actions did you take in DYAD about one week ago?" Delphine bursted.

"It is none of your concern, you don't work here anymore."

"Cosima, answer me," Delphine was starting to get pissed. Why is this woman so fucking difficult to deal with all the fucking time? "Did you sign something without carefully going through it? Or did you admit new personnel into the virology labs?"

"It is none of your concern!" Cosima snapped. "And I am having lunch, if you don't mind."

Delphine was about to say something, but the call was cut off. Cosima had hung up on her. _Perfect!_ Something about this unknown virus was definitely not right. Maybe it was really the time to befriend those girls, was it not?

When Delphine was coming back, Chloé and Shay were packing their bags to leave. They waved, and vanished in a few moments. Only then Delphine came closer and sat.

Louise suggested they packed and headed to their hotel, too, so she could relax before going out again. She also told Delphine that she had agreed to meet the girls somewhere in the city centre for them to dance and drink something.

All the way to the hotel, Louise was talking about them, and how nice it was to have other girls to have fun with. Delphine herself was not paying much attention. She was definitely thinking a lot about other things including unknown viruses.

As soon as they got into their room, Louise filled the big squared-bathtub with hot water and camomile powder soap, letting herself get lazy inside it.

Delphine, on the other hand, took off the shirt she put on to go out of the beach, and laid face down on the huge king-size bed, topless. She was feeling too tired to function. She was not sure if it had been the heat of the whole conversations or the whole hitting or the whole holidays thing. She soon had her eyes closed, and fell sound asleep.

. . .

Louise planted soft kissed on Delphine's shoulder, and then neck, but she didn't move even a bit, and that was when Lou knew she was asleep. _What the fuck!_

"Wake up, honey," she said, kissing Delphine's right shoulder once again.

Delphine hummed and slowly opened her eyes, feeling like she had just been shaken off.

"Go get ready! We're catching up with the girls in an hour!"

Delphine wasn't in the mood for partying or drinking or catching up with anyone. Maybe the heat had really affected her. Too much sun can make anyone exhausted.

"You can go without me," she said.

Louise raised an eyebrow, looking at Delphine through the mirror in front which she was drying her hair.

"You sure?"

"Of course," Delphine rolled on the bed. "I'm too tired anyways."

. . .

The full blue moon was incredibly beautiful, and Delphine was in the balcony, enjoying the cold wind howling through the night, when she heard the bedroom door crack open, and too much footsteps for only a single human being. She didn't turn back to see what was going on, thou.

She could hear a lot of giggling and _shush!_ sounds, and eventually she could feel the bedroom light was turned on.

"Delphiiiiine?" Louise shouted from somewhere.

"Don't think she is here," someone else said. Was it Chloé or Shay? The voice was familiar enough.

Delphine closed the glass door and the curtains behind her, so she could ignore whatever was happening inside the bedroom, and enjoy the view from the balcony.

It was so comfortable there, that eventually she moved from the chaise to the hammock, and fell asleep.

. . .

Delphine woke up somewhere around 7 a.m., and immediately opened the curtains, to get through the glass door and into the bedroom. She was still dizzy from the sleep, but as soon as she stepped into the bedroom, she was wide awake. There were clothes and high heels all around the room, on the floor. Panties on the side-table, mobile and money under the bed, and Louise and Shay were sound asleep completely naked and cuddled (and badly covered with the sheets) on the bed.

 _Seriously?_

END OF CHAPTER TWO


End file.
